Route optimization

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Overview

ProBase can work out the most efficient order to visit your stops, saving you time and fuel. It shows up in a few places:

• Optimize route — a full preview of a better order for one crew’s day. You see exactly what would move and what it saves, then apply it or leave it. This page.
• Rebalance this day — the same idea across several crews, moving jobs between them. See Rebalancing the day.
• Assign & optimize routes — hands out the day’s unassigned jobs and routes them in one pass. See Jobs that need a crew.
• Background auto-optimization — ProBase quietly reorders days as work is added, and tells you afterwards. See Background auto-optimization.
• Crew and start-time suggestions — the same engine works out what each crew would cost you in driving when you assign one, and what start time fits the day. See The Recommended crew and The recommended start time.

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Opening the Optimize route preview

Two doors lead to the same screen:

• Schedule → Day view — the “Save about 40 min of driving” row in the Needs you card (Plan your day), whose verb reads Optimize the route
• Schedule → Day view → Reorder stops → Optimize drive

Either way, the screen opens headed Optimize route and starts working.

Working out a better order… Checking the drive between your stops.

You can tap Cancel while it’s thinking; nothing is written either way.

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Reading the proposal

When ProBase finds a better order, the screen answers the only question that matters with a number: Save 34 min of driving, and underneath, what that costs you in movement — “6 stops will move. New schedule: 6:30 AM – 2:41 PM.” Below that is the day, stop by stop, with both sides of every time — what it is now and what it would become. A stop that doesn’t move shows one time. On a computer the same proposal reads the same way, with more room for each row. If the proposed route would still run past the crew’s End time, the screen says so before you commit: “New route runs 40 min past 5:00 PM.” A better order isn’t always a short enough day. A crew with no End time set never gets this line — ProBase has no end of day to measure against.

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Pinned stops

Pinned stops keep their times — the preview lists them by name (“2 stops pinned: David Chen, Ana Ruiz”) and marks their rows Pinned instead of showing a new time. Calculate cost of pins asks ProBase to work the day out a second time as if nothing were pinned, then tells you the difference: “Unpinning them could save another 18 min.”, or “Unpinning them wouldn’t save you anything — they’re already on the best route.” It’s information only — no pin is touched. See Pinning a visit’s time.

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Applying it

Two buttons sit at the bottom:

• Apply optimized route — writes the new order and re-times every stop that moved.
• Keep current route — closes the screen, changes nothing, and marks the day as reviewed so it isn’t offered to you again until the stops on it change.

After applying you get a confirmation: “Route updated — 34 min saved. Undo before you start your first stop.” with Undo beside it.

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Undoing

Undo puts every moved stop back where it was. It stays available until your crew starts the day — once a stop on the day is completed (or the day has passed) it expires. The undo also lives in ⋯ More → Undo the reorder — 34 min saved on the Day view while it’s good, so you don’t have to catch the message. Undo tells you what it did in every case:

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The other answers

Not every day has a better order in it, and ProBase says which case you’re in rather than showing a blank screen.

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When the crew has no start address

If the crew you’re optimizing has no start address saved, the preview doesn’t leave you guessing. Beneath “Couldn’t work out a better order right now.” a yellow notice names the crew — “Yardless Crew has no start address” — and explains: “ProBase can’t build a route for a crew without one. Add a start address on the Crews page, then try again.” Tap Open Crews to go straight to the Crews page, add the address, then come back and tap Try again. You can dismiss the notice with the X if you’d rather not see it; nothing on your day was changed.

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A day that’s already underway

Optimizing today is different from planning tomorrow, and ProBase treats it that way. When a day is underway it works the route out from where the crew actually is and no earlier than right now — the stop being worked, or the last one completed, is the starting point. No stop is ever proposed at a time that’s already gone, and the job your crew is standing on is never moved.

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Background auto-optimization

With Optimize my routes automatically switched on in Settings, ProBase reorders a crew’s day in the background as work is added or changed — no action from you. It doesn’t do it silently. The next time you open that day, a message tells you what happened: “ProBase reordered this day — 22 min saved.” — or, on a multi-crew team where work moved, “ProBase reordered this day and moved 2 jobs to Alex — 41 min saved.” — with Undo beside it. The background pass only reorders a crew’s day when the new order actually saves driving. If ProBase can’t find an order that drives less than the one you already have, it leaves the day exactly as it is — no reorder, no message. When the background pass places a job that had no crew onto someone’s route, adding that stop can mean a little more driving, not less. In that case the message leaves out the time figure and simply reads “ProBase reordered this day and moved 1 job to Alex.” — a minutes-saved figure only appears when time was really saved. Pinned stops are never moved by the background pass either.

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What optimization never moves

• A pinned stop keeps its time. See Pinning a visit’s time.
• A stop a crew is already working stays exactly where it is — the preview marks it held rather than proposing a new time for the job someone is standing on.
• A stop is never proposed before the crew’s start time, and on a day already underway, never before now.
• Nothing is written to other days.

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Requirements

Route optimization needs:

• The crew to have a starting address saved — it’s where the drive is measured from. See Start and end locations.
• Property addresses that ProBase can find on the map.
• At least two stops for that crew on the date.

An ending address is optional: leave it blank and the day simply finishes at the last job. A crew with no starting address can’t be routed at all. Its card in the Crews list carries an amber line — “No start address — ProBase can’t build routes for this crew.” — its page offers Add start address, and HomeBase lists a starting-point setup for it under Make it yours. The Optimize route, Rebalance and Assign & optimize previews also name any crew they couldn’t route for this reason, with an Open Crews link.

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Drive time is padded

Every drive time ProBase plans with — in the preview, in the Reorder stops panel, in the crew suggestions — already includes your drive time buffer, so the numbers you see are the numbers it schedules with. Set it in Settings → Scheduling.

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Next steps

• Reorder stops — hand-pick the order yourself
• Rebalance the day — move work between crews
• Plan your day — where HomeBase and the Day view surface all of this
• Daily crew schedules — track progress once the day starts